Now THAT was stupid!

[In My Memory]

Heres a thread to celebrate our stupidity, by telling our stories about the really dumb things we've done...

 

 

I think I'm just a stupid prone person... I have so many stories to tell. Once, when I was a teenager, I ran out of razors, so I tried to shave my legs with a serated knife. Around that same time, before I came to my vegan sensibilities, I made a blow torch out of hairspray and a lighter and tried to set bugs on fire in my parents house, and I almost burned a couch down.

 

Specifically, this thread was promted after something I did today:

 

Today I got that idea that I should be more responsible with my money, instead of spending it all on cute skirts and high heels like I usually do, so I could be committed to other things like putting away money into a retirement account.

 

So, I figured I could start spending less money by using less electricity, so I went and I bought some dry ice to put in my fridge and freezer to keep it cool. It worked really well, I turned down my fridge and freezer settings, and I start patting myself on the back for being thrifty and more environmentally sound.

 

Fast forward to now, after about 6 hours have passed. I just looked in my fridge, and everything is frozen solid... all of my glass jars are broken, all of my juices have exploded all over everything, a bottle of oil has cracked and leaked over everything, and there are bits of shattered glass in all of my vegetables (somehow I didnt hear any of this). Also, I think I might have just broken my fridge for good, I think the plastic interior is cracked but I cant tell because the entire thing is covered in 1/2 inch of ice. On top of that, I havent eaten all day .

 

So all of the money I would have saved on electricity is going to be spent today buyding new groceries and defrosting my fridge with a hair dryer. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

 

 

Share your stories

[Royston]

One thing springs to mind...when I was younger I thought it would be great to slip into my pyjamas if they were warm, and so lulling me to sleep. So as I had a bath, I hung my bed clothes on the electric heater in the bathroom.

 

Ten minutes later there was a burning smell, I pushed back the shower curtain, and the bathroom was on fire and my pyjamas were melting and sticking to the bathroom wall...needless to say, a few seconds afterwards, my Dad was banging on the door shouting 'what the hell are you doing in there.'

 

Try explaining to your Dad, that the thought of warm pyjamas is appealing, when your 9 years old.

[swansont]

Too many to recall and recount. Using regular dish soap in the dishwasher springs to mind. I was scooping up suds and depositing them in the sink for a little while. Combuston related items, too, like putting some butane in a soda can and lighting it, and having it turn into a nice jet of flame, burning the hair off of several fingers.

[insane_alien]

hmm... most recent one is probably trying to fix a TV when its still on. it was going fine until the screwdriver went a tad too close to the higher voltage parts of the innards. wakes you up quite well though.

 

a suggestion for the fridge: use a lot less ice in the fridge than the freezer. you can stick as much in the freezer as you like because stuff in there is meant to be frozen but just a sprinkle for the fridge.

[Dak]

Using regular dish soap in the dishwasher springs to mind. I was scooping up suds and depositing them in the sink for a little while.

 

assuming dish-soap is american for washing-up liquid, i've done that with the washing(laundry) machine.

 

a little bit, squirted directly onto a grease-based stain, helps remove those stubborn stains that washing powder alone cannot shift,

 

a huge squirt, however, as i discovered when i was trying to shift a huge stain (you can probably see my logic), makes your washing mashine break, and the bubbles somehow actually come out the waterproof seal, and my god are there alot of bubbles they were up to mid-shin by the washing machine.

[Bettina]

(When I was younger) Covering my head with tin foil every night for a week to stop those vibes.

 

(My dad) Adding six quarts of oil to his antique car as I watched it come out the bottom and flow down the driveway. I didn't say anything because I was only 10 and didn't know.

 

Bee

[bascule]

I grew up on a nursery when I was young. There were irrigation ditches everywhere.

 

There were little wooden stoppers you could stick in the ditches in order to redirect them or temporarily stop them up while you worked on them.

 

Anywho, one day when I was like 6 or 7 or so I was playing around with those, and I saw a really cool spider. It was big and black, and had a little red hourglass on it.

 

My dad walked up, wondering what I was doing. I hid the spider from him, and chatted with him for a bit, then he left.

 

Anyway, nothing happened, but I soon discovered that red hourglass meant a black widow, and that they were one of the most poisonous spiders in North America.

[ecoli]

I don't really have any stories like this... reading (and laughing) at the above stories makes me wish I had less common sense.

[YT2095]

as some are on a domestic related theme, the kitchen sink was blocked, I didn`t have any sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), so I put 3 small pea sized peices of sodium metal down it and covered it with a large pot (a pressure cooker) to avaid any splatter.

all went well for about 30 secs then BOOM! the pot jumped up splashing it`s contents (water) all up the ceiling and walls and on futher inspection, under the kitchen sink, I`de blown the U bend clean off too

 

my wife went crazy at me!

[bascule]

Oh, okay, so here's a funny one.

 

I used to live in a destitute rental house. My shower had this awesome habit of clogging up and flooding the basement.

 

We didn't have any draino, and this girl I know suggested trying vinegar and baking soda to clear out the drain. So, after all the standing water seeped through the clog, I dumped baking soda down the drain and poured in the vinegar. Well, surprise surprise, that did jack.

 

So, I went to the store and bought some draino...

 

I poured the draino into the standing pool of vinegar. Hey, draino goes through standing water, right? I then realize I just mixed an acid and a base and the vapor it's producing feels awfully caustic. I open up a window and get the hell out of there.

[BobbyJoeCool]

When I was about twelve or thirteen... I was supposed to clean the bathroom every week or so. Well... I got sick of using 4 different kinds of cleaner/cleanser So... I went in the cabinet, grabbed EVERY kind of cleaner there... Windex, 409, The Works Buildup Remover, Draino, Toilet cleaner, Laundry Soap, Dish Soap, I think I even had liquid soap and shampoo in there... And I dumped all of EVERY bottle in to this big 10 gallon tub we have (right now, about 1/4 full). As of yet, there were no problems... I went to the kitchen and got a big stirring spoon, and stirred slowely for about 5 minutes. By now, I can smell this stuff, and it reaked of cleaners (and I HATE that smell)... so I figure, this is probably too strong and will not only remove skum... but the tiles and paint on the walls. So... I stick it in the tub (and I could barely lift it), put it under the faucet for the bath, and turn the water on full blast...

 

At this point, I suddenly overhear my dad yelling at my brother for mowing the lawn with no shoes on, and telling the story AGAIN about how my grandfather did this once, and now only has 9 toes. I was only turned around for 10 seconds... When I turned back around... Bubbles EVERYWHERE... Some are floating, but in 10-20 seconds, the ENTIRE bathtub was full of bubbles... I managed to turn the water off before the tub overflowed, barely. My dad was not ammused... as I had basically wasted $70-80 worth of cleaners and soaps and other various things... plus... there were suds everywhere...

 

On the plus side... for the next few days, the tub was REALLY clean, and it hadn't drained that fast in quite a while!

[Spyman]

Heres a thread to celebrate our stupidity, by telling our stories about the really dumb things we've done...

Don't forget this:

Stupidest thing I'd ever done:

 

I thought I knew how to water ski. I thought if I couldnt water ski' date=' I wouldnt let myself be dragged 160ft through the water. After that, I thought I'd never find my suit.

 

[/quote']

Lot's of fun to read in that thread too...

 

Stupidest things you've done http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11538

[Phi for All]

I thought I knew how to water ski. I thought if I couldnt water ski, I wouldnt let myself be dragged 160ft through the water. After that, I thought I'd never find my suit.

While I'm collating all my stupid things, I'll tell one about a total stranger this story reminded me about.

 

At a certain Colorado ski slope one balmy May they had a contest where they dug a large pit at the foot of one slope and let it fill with icy runoff water and then challenged skiers to come downhill and try to ski across without falling in. One young lady, wearing a tube top and denim shorts, didn't keep the tips of her skis up and hit that icy pit full speed face-first.

 

When she popped up out of the water her tube top was around her waist. She was embarassed about her little dive but didn't realize she was topless in front of several hundred spectators. As she slogged through the waist-deep water to climb out her friend was yelling, "Your top! Your top!"

 

The young exhibitionist misunderstood, thinking she had made it farther across than anybody else, and proceeded to raise both arms above her head in an "I'm number one!" victory gesture, misinterpreting the roar of applause untill she got to the edge and finally looked down. Her friend had grabbed one hand to help her out but the young woman suddenly decided she wanted to get back in under the water to correct her wardrobe.

 

She accidentally pulled her friend in with her to complete the comedy of errors.

[GutZ]

I walked into a pole once, after that I always looked forward when talking to someone. One time I tried to replace a toilet seat but the bolts were rusted shut to the nut. For some reason I thought a hammer would do the trick, just tap it alittle to try and loosen the connection...hit it a little too hard broke a large chunk off...well it needed replacing anyway...I think I was just frustrated and resorted to primative smashing.

[Karnage]

i accidently kicked a can on the street into the sewer drains, not knowing that it had a homeless woman's money in it

[Phi for All]

Doing stupid things is always more poetic with an audience, and more so when the audience is made up of friends who won't let you forget. My oldest friend still tells the story about me pulling out of a drive-in movie without removing the speaker from my window.

 

Did I rip the speaker from the post like so many others have done? No, the speaker broke out my car window and showered all four of us with safety glass.

[aj47]

The other day I saw what appeared to be my friend in my local library, head down reading a book. As a joke I crept up behind him and jokingly slapped him in round the face to discover it wasn't my friend but a random guy. It was pretty embarassing to say the least.

[DaveC426913]

Too many to recall and recount. Using regular dish soap in the dishwasher springs to mind. I was scooping up suds and depositing them in the sink for a little while. Combuston related items, too, like putting some butane in a soda can and lighting it, and having it turn into a nice jet of flame, burning the hair off of several fingers.

Been there.

 

It's the blue flame that leaves the lasting hurt.

[DaveC426913]

... so I put 3 small pea sized peices of sodium metal down it and covered it with a large pot (a pressure cooker)

Jumpin' Jehosephat you suicidal bugger! :eek:

[DaveC426913]

I finally got fed up with the slow drain in my kitchen sink and decided to unplug it. I had tried solvents and long sticks and nothing had worked.

 

Sighing, I went under the sink to get at the drain cock. As I unscrewed it, water began dripping down, and I saw the sink water-level drop. Concerned for my kitchen’s hardwood floor, I grabbed a bucket and cleverly placed it in the cupboard under the stopcock to catch the water. Then I unscrewed the stopcock. It fell into the bucket and out of the trap came several utensils, a lot of dishwater and a fistful of soggy macaroni.

 

Satisfied, and proud of my accomplishment, I began cleaning up. I took out the bucket full of sinkwater, and tossed the utensils and the stopcock onto the counter, and then cleverly dumped the bucket of water into the sink...

 

...where it poured down the drain, into the cupboard, and directly out onto my hardwood floor.

[padren]

So, I figured I could start spending less money by using less electricity, so I went and I bought some dry ice to put in my fridge and freezer to keep it cool. It worked really well, I turned down my fridge and freezer settings, and I start patting myself on the back for being thrifty and more environmentally sound.

 

Hate to throw salt on the wound but, while it could save you money, aren't you just moving the energy used in cooling the fridge to the dry ice manufacturer, the freezer trucks that transport it, and the stores that keep it in inventory, then erroding that as you transport it in less than ideally cold conditions to your freezer?

 

I think the net total effect would be less environmentally sound than producing cool on-site in your fridge and sparing the diesel transport fuel, and the various maintainence cooling and original freezing of the block of dry ice.

[Pleiades]

My dad and I wanted to take apart a parachute flare, and he figured the easiest way would just be to fire the rocket into a bucket of water and then recover the parachute and flare part when the rocket was extinguished. I expressed my doubts, but we continued anyway.

 

The 5 gallon bucket had its bottom blown out, and the water was no where to be seen, the rocket bounced around until it got stuck and the fuel ran out. I don’t remember if the rocket went on to ignite the flare like its supposed to, but we got it out one way or another and hung in on the clothes line and lit it, it was pretty.

 

 

Years later, I learned that powdered sugar and powdered potassium nitrate could be mixed together for lots of fun and smoke. My best fried asked me for some and I obliged. His mother was later looking for his cell phone in his backpack and discovered a small plastic bag of white powder. For some crazy reason she thought it was cocaine, and proceeded to taste it to find out (she had no idea what cocaine was supposed to taste like, but anyway). She called his dad home form work, and called my friend home from his girlfriend’s house. He explained everything to his mother, and a while later I received a call from her. She was mad but mostly at herself I think, I was laughing at her as she explained the story, I’m pretty good friends with his mother anyway.

 

But it doesn’t stop there. A few days later his brother decides to make some of the mix himself, using some instructions from the internet. Rather than mixing 2 powders dry, he tried to melt the KNO3 into the sugar, over the kitchen stove. Some of the mix dried out and ignited taking the contents of the rather large pot with it. His whole family had to get down on their hands and knees and crawl out of the kitchen under the smoke, which extended about halfway down the wall (good thing the smoke isn’t that choking).

[DaveC426913]

My best fried asked me for ... a small plastic bag of white powder. For some crazy reason she thought it was cocaine...

 

Freudian slip? (Are you wearing yours?)

[DaveC426913]

... She was mad but mostly at herself I think, I was laughing at her as she explained the story, I’m pretty good friends with his mother anyway.

 

Ohhhhh! Heh heh! So dear, you were only making a bomb! Silly me, I thought it might have been something harmful...

[In My Memory]

Padren,

Hate to throw salt on the wound but, while it could save you money, aren't you just moving the energy used in cooling the fridge to the dry ice manufacturer, the freezer trucks that transport it, and the stores that keep it in inventory, then erroding that as you transport it in less than ideally cold conditions to your freezer?

 

I think the net total effect would be less environmentally sound than producing cool on-site in your fridge and sparing the diesel transport fuel, and the various maintainence cooling and original freezing of the block of dry ice.

Its a good question, but think of it this way: trucks will driven no matter what, even if I dont buy ice. The only thing I can control is how much power I put into my freezer, so the net affect on the environment can be either:

- trucks drive and IMM runs her freezer cold

- trucks drive and IMM runs her freezer very little

 

I'm not moving the energy, because the trucks and dry ice manufacturers use the same amount no matter what I'm doing, but overall I'm using less using less of it At least I think so, I havent worked the numbers.

 

Probably my worst habit though, as far as using energy, is leaving my oven on. Today, I forgot to turn my oven off before going to work, and I walked into my house and it was sweltering. My thermostat only goes up to 90 degrees, and it was maxed out. So, yeah, time to open a window